Parents misusing infant drop-off law

All parents of teenagers have had evil thoughts and considered ditching their grumpy adolescents on street corners. But it’s shocking to think that someone would actually do this.

Guess what? It’s happening in Nebraska. According to a New York Times article from last week, a new Nebraska law “was mainly intended to prevent so-called Dumpster babies–the abandonment of newborns by young, terrified mothers–but instead has been used to hand off out-of-control teenagers. In total last month, 15 older children in Nebraska were dropped off by a beleaguered parent or custodial aunt or grandmother who said the children were unmanageable. The biggest shock to public officials came last week, when a single father walked into an Omaha hospital and surrendered nine of his 10 children, ages 1 to 17, saying that his wife had died and he could no longer cope with the burden of raising them.”

Parents can now tell their unruly teens, “Behave, or we’re moving to Nebraska!”

Nationwide, more than 2,000 babies have been turned over since Texas enacted the first abandonment law in 1999, according to the National Safe Haven Alliance in Virginia. In California, the safe-haven law says that you can drop off an infant that’s less than 72 hours at a public or private emergency room or any other designated location. Our law is typical of those in other states. But Nebraska’s version was far broader than all others, protecting not just infants but also children up to age 19.

Nebraska state officials say parents fed up with raising unruly teens are misusing the law. Now they’re calling on the legislature to change the law to restrict the age to younger children.

Can a parent decide they don’t want to be parents anymore? Isn’t it a parent’s right to care for a child? But what about those parents who are truly at the end of their rope?